Bill,
Your point is very timely. We're examining this issue
in our User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, where we should
recommend that user agents allow users to turn off author-specified
keyboard configurations, notably where they interfere with
system conventions or accessibility.
I'm not sure whether the HTML 4.0 spec should be modified as
well, for example adding a statement to the effect that
user agents should allow users to turn off access key support
Thank you for the comments,
- Ian
WILLIAM ZAUMEN wrote:
>
> The HTML 4.0 specification contains the following text:
>
> In this example, we assign an access key to a link defined by
> the A element. Typing this access key takes the user to another
> document, in this case, a table of contents.
>
> <P><A accesskey="C"
> rel="contents"
> href="http://someplace.com/specification/contents.html">
> Table of Contents</A>
>
> The invocation of access keys depends on the underlying system. For
> instance, on machines running MS Windows, one generally
> has to press the "alt" key in addition to the access key.
> On Apple systems, one generally has to press the "cmd" key
> in addition to the access key.
>
> The problem with this statement is that, if "C" is defined as an
> access key as in the example, there is a conflict with what a
> browser would normally do: "cmd C" on Apple systems is used by all
> applications to mean "copy". Netscape and Internet Explorer
> follow this convention. If the browser's default takes precedence,
> then the accesskey won't work if activated by the "cmd" key as
> described in the HTML specification. If the ACCESSKEY specification
> overrides the browswer, then the browser does not comform to the
> user interface guidelines for MacIntosh programs.
>
> I'm not sure if the description in the HTML 4.0 specification needs
> a minor change or if there is a problem in general: one would not
> want to have to produce different versions of an HTML 4.0 file,
> depending on the browser. Picking accesskeys so as not to
> collide with keyboard shortcuts used by various products is
> awkward given multiple operating systems, windowing systems,
> and browsers, each with different conventions.
>
> Bill
--
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax: +1 212 684-1814